Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

by Christie Golden

  On the tower, a yellow-skinned Siirt guard watched Laureline getting out of the bus. His gaze moved to the men in ponchos following her. He lifted a three-fingered hand—to wave, Laureline thought. He did precisely that, but then a thought seemed to occur to him, and he placed his hands down on the very impressive rapid-fire weapon standing beside him and moved it in their direction.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Laureline smiled brightly and shouted up at the anxious Siirt, “Hi there! No need for that! I know, no idling here. Not to worry, we won’t be long!”

  Her friendly greeting made him hesitate. She reached behind her, grasped her weapon, and took aim at the guard. A shockwave emerged from the barrel of the gun that securely planted a small dart in the Siirt’s scrawny bare chest.

  At the same instant, the men removed their ponchos, revealing bulky hardware strapped to their bodies. Captain Zito—though Laureline had heard him called “Captain Z” from time to time by his team—stood beside her, carrying a flat computer with a wide screen. Swiftly Laureline detached part of her weapon and flipped it onto the screen’s back. Zito turned to the left, and then the right.

  The Siirt in the watch tower mirrored his movement.

  “Okay,” said Zito, “I’ve got control of our skinny friend here. We’ll be able to see everything he can.”

  Laureline had seen this before, of course, but she could never quite suppress a flicker of amusement whenever a Con-Dart was utilized not just to render the enemy harmless, but also to, essentially, conscript him. How efficient the resulting “forced friendly” actually turned out to be was dependent on two factors—how easy the target was to manipulate, and how proficient his controller was.

  Siirts, not being the sharpest knives in the drawer, were extremely malleable, and Captain Z was clearly an old hand at this. Laureline suspected that the captain was an old hand at a lot of things, and she wondered why he wasn’t a higher ranking officer. She looked at the sharp face, the determined jaw, and cool eyes and decided she didn’t really need to know.

  Laureline turned her attention to the target, impressed with how smoothly—well, comparatively smoothly—the gangly Kirian native returned to his weapon and, as far as anyone watching was concerned, resumed his loyal watch over the compound.

  “Let’s go,” Captain Z ordered, and the team returned to the bus.

  A few moments later, they had rejoined Major Gibson. He and his men stood around the steel door of the eastern gate. A soldier was scanning the door as Laureline jumped off the bus, frowning as he examined the readout.

  “It’s as we expected—the doorframe is booby-trapped all the way around, sir,” he reported.

  Gibson nodded. He turned to Laureline, handing her a large, long carrying case, and then checked his watch.

  “Drop in twelve minutes, Sergeant,” Gibson said.

  Laureline nodded. The taciturn, focused Zito stood next to her as the rest of Gibson’s team pressed flat against the rough red stone of the outer wall, and Laureline glanced over at his screen.

  Zito was now seeing through the eyes of the puppet Siirt up on the watchtower, who was gazing at the compound on the other side of the wall. Laureline smothered a grin, an expression that wasn’t really appropriate at this tense moment, as she watched tourists in virtual reality gear amble about haphazardly, pointing at marvels invisible to her gaze and picking up things that weren’t there. It looked like some kind of amateur improvisational theater performance.

  “Adjusting view,” Zito informed the group. He turned the dial. As Laureline continued to watch the Siirt-Cam, the actual desert inside the stone walls disappeared, to be replaced by the busy consumer paradise and colorful chaos of Big Market.

  “Excellent,” Gibson approved. “Activate the guard’s monitoring camera and locate Major Valerian”

  “Aye, sir,” Zito replied promptly. The point of view shifted as the Siirt’s head turned to regard the controls. He—and now Zito—were seeing through the point of view of a camera drone the size of a small bird, which rose, hovered, darting about, then dove downward, zipping through the unreal souk in search of Valerian.

  One of the soldiers stepped forward and marked the outlines of a rectangle on the enormous metal of the gate’s door with a laser. With a quick tap of a button, the rectangular portion of the iron barrier vanished, becoming a human-sized doorway.

  “Time for you to go shopping,” Gibson said.

  Laureline nodded. She donned the helmet and gloves two of the soldiers held out to her. Gripping the carrying case she had been given earlier, she slipped through the door.

  And then she, like Valerian, was in Big Market.

  * * *

  Big Market, Valerian thought, was overwhelming. He had no idea how anyone could focus long enough to purchase anything. It filled the vast enclosure to overflowing with nearly a million merchant stalls and millions of things one could purchase. He was presently on the Market’s main street, open to the sunlight, but a quick glance around revealed that there were not just myriad shops, there were myriad levels. A lift zipped by to one side, ferrying beaming customers to new sights.

  The cacophony of aliens of every description hawking things that Valerian couldn’t even imagine filled his ears. Here, under a carved stone arch, a pale humanoid with an elongated head was selling small clouds, securely fastened by small rope lassos about their forms. A little storm was gathering inside one of them as Valerian passed.

  A large blue alien with tiny eyes on large stalks stood wearing very human-looking clothes upon which were affixed an inordinate number of buttons. His entire shop, in fact, appeared to consist of nothing but buttons, and as Valerian passed, the merchant waved to him and held up a small button that had an image of Earth on it. Valerian felt an unexpected tug; most of his youth had been spent on Earth, but he hadn’t been back in years. If anyplace was home to him now, it was the Intruder.

  “Monoliths!” shouted a merchant, an alien about three feet tall, squat, with eyes the size of Valerian’s fists on either side of his head and a shock of wildly frizzy hair. “Get your monoliths here!”

  Valerian frowned, seeing about a dozen solid black rectangles propped up against a wall. At first glance they were just slabs, but he found his gaze being held by them. He felt oddly drawn to them, wondering what it would feel like to touch them.

  Abruptly Valerian shook his head, snapping out of it. He had a job to do.

  The flow of the tourist group ferried Valerian to the vicinity of a middle-aged couple dressed in clothing that managed to be both garish and frumpy. Their faces were largely obscured by their helmets, but the woman’s shocking candy-red hair peeked out from beneath. Valerian thought he could imagine their appearances just fine judging simply by their body language.

  And their conversation.

  “Just think, baby!” the woman gushed. She was practically vibrating with the thrill of the hunt. “A million stores! Let’s buy a few trinkets!”

  “We discussed this,” the man began to protest. “You said you just wanted to see it!”

  “Well, yes, but we’ll need something to remember the experience by, won’t we?” Her voice was plaintive.

  The man sighed. “All right, honey, but only stuff we can carry, okay?” He wagged his finger at her.

  “Deal!” she replied. She actually clapped her hands and skipped before letting out an excited squeal and hugging her husband. Beneath the visor, the man gave a broad, happy grin. Valerian found himself smiling as well.

  Thaziit turned to face his group, walking backwards with practiced ease as he said, “Remember that the sensors embedded in your equipment enable you to be fully present in Big Market and have the total experience. You can touch objects, the walls…’’

  Not looking where he was reaching, Thaziit’s hand closed on the enormous proboscis of an alien merchant with tiny eyes and two sets of arms. One of his four hands came up to slap Thaziit’s.

  “Watch it, buddy!”

  “Oo
ps! Sorry!” Thaziit apologized. The alien muttered at him and rearranged the items on his table, still glaring. The items on his table glared, too.

  Thaziit took off his glove and held it over his head, so everyone could see. “As I was saying, you can touch objects in Big Market if you have your gloves on. But if you remove your sensors, you will lose contact and all sense of touch.” He reached out, and this time his hand went completely through the alien’s head. It sputtered in annoyance, clearly fed up with the annoying human guide.

  “Then you’ll lose the chance of snapping up bargains! So keep your equipment on at all times!”

  The group headed deeper into the market. Thaziit slowed, allowing some time for everyone to wander a bit and peruse tables and carpet displays more carefully. Valerian pretended to show interest in an ancient piece of furniture that the vendor assured him “every household needed,” then, once he was certain Thaziit’s attention was on helping another tourist, he fell back and melted into the crowd.

  He slipped discreetly down a narrow street, checking the street and vendor numbers he’d seen on the map. Further away from the center area, the real estate grew distinctly seedier. Instead of large, airy plazas with statuary, fountains, and awnings, the architecture went up—and down, into the earth—instead of out, and the shops were smaller and darker, becoming not much more than a warren of holes.

  Valerian hastened down seven sets of stairs, then he turned into another street, slowing as he approached the appointed site. Light filtered down from a series of grates overhead, both from artificial illumination and from some round, glowing, floating creatures harnessed for just this purpose. He passed a tentacled being juggling about twenty bright metallic balls, and then found himself a few shops away from Igon Siruss’s “antique store.”

  Slightly amused, Valerian thought it was completely nondescript, looking like any one of the thousand other stores he’d passed. Modest columns rose on either side of the door, and an arched entrance with a red curtain shielded the interior. There was nothing special about it— if you excluded the pair of heavily armed Kodhar’Khans flanking the door and the leashed Pit-Ghors that sat beside them.

  The Kodhar’Khans were slender, a little taller than Valerian. They did not look nearly as imposing as Igon Siruss, but they were clearly members of the same species; Valerian made note of the three sets of nostrils.

  They wore dark orange hoods and were heavily armed, but otherwise did not look particularly dangerous. Valerian decided that Laureline was probably overestimating their aggressiveness. Which was kind of sweet.

  The Pit-Ghors, however… These were two of the larger ones Valerian had ever seen. He regarded them with healthy appreciation. They were four-legged and very solidly built, reptilian, red in color. Their heads were enormous, their sharp-toothed mouths equally large, and they seemed to be obedient.

  For now.

  Valerian continued at a reasonable pace, regarding the store and the other shops on the street with a casual oh hey I’m just looking amble, then turned left down another street as if looking for more shops.

  Sergeant Cooper was waiting for him. Valerian had never met the sergeant, but he decided that if he ever wanted to get into a bar brawl, it wouldn’t be with this man. Not so much because he was larger or more muscular, or even that he looked particularly scary, but because there was just something about the way he held himself that promised that such an encounter would end badly.

  Cooper eyed the floral shirt with distaste. Valerian found that highly amusing, considering that Cooper, who was also attempting to blend in, wore a floppy, shapeless hat and a bulky necklace that was of obviously cheap craftsmanship.

  “Major Valerian,” Valerian introduced himself.

  “Sergeant Cooper,” the man replied, nodding at him. He handed a gun to Valerian, who inspected it while Cooper pulled the cover off a rectangular metal box that had the words “The Sleeve” written on it. The metal was dinged, and the brown paint on it grimy. It had seen better days.

  “Put this on,” instructed Cooper. With the weapon gripped in his hand, Valerian thrust his right arm into the Sleeve up to the shoulder. Cooper fastened it securely over his arm. The Sleeve swallowed Valerian’s lower arm, hand, and weapon.

  “Ever used one of these before?”

  “Nope,” Valerian said. He hadn’t had many missions involving virtual reality. He preferred his reality to be… well… real.

  “Enter your genetic code on the front keypad, here,” Cooper instructed. “To come back, you enter your code on the back keypad here. Clear?”

  “Crystal,” Valerian replied.

  Cooper reached into a pocket of his outlandish garb and brought out a small canister. “This will let you infiltrate the VR scenario completely unnoticed.”

  “I’ll be invisible?”

  “In the virtual world of Big Market, yes. Here in the compound… not in the slightest.”

  “Got it.”

  Cooper spritzed him twice with the concoction. It had a faint floral scent. They won’t see me, but they’ll get a lovely whiff of springtime freshness, Valerian thought, amused. He looked down at himself and grinned. Through the visor, in this virtual world, he now couldn’t even see himself. It was disorienting, to say the least, but kind of fun.

  “Good luck,” Cooper said.

  Valerian moved to the front of the store and took up position.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Two tall, willowy humanoid figures approached the storefront. They wore gloves and hoods and kept their heads ducked down, so Valerian couldn’t get a glimpse of their faces. They strode right up to the store, making no pretense at being ordinary tourists out for a day’s shopping. Parting the hanging red curtain, they stepped inside. A Pit-Ghor growled at them, but one of the guards reprimanded it and yanked on the creature’s chain. It subsided, unhappy but obedient.

  Valerian was forced to follow the two customers almost immediately, lest further movement of the curtain at the entrance betray him. Again, the Pit-Ghor reacted, baring its ugly teeth.

  “Fluffy, what’s with you today?” the Kodhar’Khan guard said, glaring at the animal.

  “I told you,” the other one replied, “he needs more exercise. Big healthy boy like him. Don’t you, Fluffy? Huh?”

  The creature wiggled happily at the guard’s tone of voice.

  “I give him enough exercise,” the first guard said, “but every time I ask you to take him out…”

  While they were bickering and both Pit-Ghors were staring directly at him, Valerian slipped inside. He spared only the barest glance for his surroundings, noting exits, entrances, and the locations of civilians, of which there were only a few. Fortunately for them, they appeared to be getting ready to leave.

  The store was piled high with a variety of bizarre-looking antiques—books, lanterns, and candles, rolled-up carpets, carvings, jewelry, hats and headdresses, pipes of all varieties, animal saddles—but Valerian’s attention was focused on the two newcomers and the back room they were heading for.

  Igon Siruss stood there, a massive presence, clearly expecting them. Behind him, arms folded across his large, muscular chest, stood a tall Kodhar’Khan in the prime of his life. He wore armor on his shoulders and down one arm. He had stripes on his bare skin and head, and a vicious scar from a previous fight that had taken his right eye and cut a line down his face. Fit and lithe where his father was obese and trundling, “Junior” nevertheless bore a strong resemblance to him.

  Okay, so he probably hadn’t been picked on at Kodhar’Khan school. If anything, Valerian was willing to bet Junior had instigated any bullying that had taken place.

  “Hey, Tsûuri! Good to see you again!” Igon boomed. His jovial voice was several octaves below a human’s speaking tones, and it all but rumbled along Valerian’s bones. One of Igon’s guards held the door open for the hooded pair to enter. Moving quietly, and wishing he didn’t smell quite so sunshine-fresh, Valer
ian entered hard on the strangers’ heels. The closing door missed him by an inch.

  The two newcomers halted at the sight of no fewer than six guards standing against the walls of the room. Valerian’s gaze flickered over the slender shapes, noting their locations and their weapons. He was beginning to revise his estimate of their species.

  “Please, sit down!” Igon invited. He had moved to stand behind a large table. There was one gargantuan seat to accommodate his enormous behind, and two ordinary-sized chairs at the front of the table. His “guests” would be forced to sit with their backs to the door—a psychologically vulnerable position. The newcomers exchanged glances, and slowly sank down into the proffered chairs.

  The one Siruss had addressed as Tsûuri asked, coldly, “Do you have what we asked for?”

  “Yeah, sure, of course,” Siruss replied genially, “but I have to tell you, it was a toughie.” He shook his grotesquely large head. “I lost an awful lot of personnel getting it for you.”

  He nodded to one of the guards, who placed a rectangular metal box on the table. The front end was not solid, but grated, and Valerian heard a slight shuffling sound from inside.

  Then a small creature pressed its face to the bars.

  Valerian started. It looks a lot like the pet the princess in my dream had, Valerian thought. Where had that weird dream come from? Alex’s “answer” had raised more questions than it had answered.

  The creature’s eyes widened and it squealed gleefully, wriggling in excitement and extending a small forepaw through the bars.

  “We will pay you!” cried Tsûuri. His voice trembled with emotion.

  “I’m sure you will,” Igon said, with false kindness. “You’re honest, valiant people.” One hand went to his chin as he added, “But this… thing… is priceless. What can you give me in exchange that could really be worth giving this up?”